It looks as if the Phil Jones University will have to be renamed, at least temporarily, since Phil himself is taking a short sabbatical while the decorators move in to do some heavy whitewashing. While we all have every confidence he will soon be back in charge of the CRU (Creative Research Unit), devising ever more inventive “tricks” to “hide the decline”, I suggest the interim title of The Piltdown Institute of Mann-made Global Warming.

Speaking of Michael Mann, the jolly hockey stick merchant himself is also undergoing investigation – not to worry, it is of the most grudging and perfunctory kind – at Pennsylvania State University. The University’s statement announcing the investigation is so complimentary to Mann, it almost reads like the press release of the verdict, published prematurely.

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But there is a lot of this unhealthy investigative mentality manifesting itself in America. Today, on Capitol Hill, the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming will question two top officials of the Obama administration: White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Holdren and Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

While these “consensual” warmists can expect a soft ride from Democrats, Republican Congressmen are expected to challenge them over the Climategate e-mails and computer data. Republicans are more than distrustful of Holdren since a book he allegedly co-wrote in 1977, supporting forced abortion, mass sterilisation via the water supply and Planetary Government to fight overpopulation, has been displayed on the Internet. It is the Planetary Government stuff that, on the eve of Copenhagen, is striking a particularly unhappy resonance.